Little extra space needed on dir-601A

[ninja]

Hello guys, i just installed gargoyle for the first time after using couple of years.This is the best firmware i found bcoz i can do client bridge.But i am facing little problem of space.I need around 360Kb more than existing overlay space.I have no experience in custom building.Is it possible to remove something to get extra space?Router is dir-601A with 4 mb of flash.Please help me guys bcoz i like gargoyle and don't want to go back.Thanks

[BashfulBladder]

You're only choice is to compile.

If you had USB, you could use extroot to use the USB device as extra memory. I've never tried it.

[ninja]

Thanks for reply.How hard is to compile for a newbie like ? I am familiar with basic linux commands and aslo ubuntu.Compiling needs linux machine?Thanks

[BashfulBladder]

Oooooh, now you asked for it!

If you're not terrified of the command line, it isn't a huge hump. You install the dependencies (when I did it in LinuxMint 14, I think it was a series of apt-get(s). Compiling a vanilla Gargoyle firmware is a scripted automated process. If your build environment is good, you walk away & (for me) 75 minutes later - its done.

You want to save space. You would edit out packages. Which ones... there's the problem.

A new thing (which isn't in the online documentation) is internationalization. And it sucks up some space. Less than 100k (maybe 40-60k), but every bit helps for you. Luckily I added a localize script that will create an English Gargoyle firmware with minimal increase in size (maybe 1000 bytes). It was geared toward people with 4MB routers. Such a build would look like this:

make v=99 localize English-EN English-EN (+whatever profile.target)

----------
So onto which packages to get rid of. Your router didn't have USB when I looked it up. I forgot which platform - say its ar71xx. Duplicate the default profile, give it a prosaic name like 'minimal' and open the config file. Find the lines with VI (its a nasty editor which I routinely edit out, so no harm). Change:

CONFIG_BUSYBOX_CONFIG_VI=y
to
# CONFIG_BUSYBOX_CONFIG_VI

and the other CONFIG_BUSYBOX_CONFIG_FEATURE_VI*** variables. The lines below vi (like awk & sed) are used by scripts all over the router, so you can't get rid of them.

Don't worry about anything with a '=m' at the end - it will be built, but not incorporated into the firmware image.

Get rid of the usb packages (kmod is kernel module, so get get rid of a kmod-usb-something too). Then you *might* try ppp. I don't know the effect of that - and you might need that. Maybe traceroute, wol. Don't touch haserl (you'll need it & it will be automatically substituted with the smaller vanilla haserl if you localize). If you don't use DynamicDNS, you can comment out ddns-gargoyle & ewget.

You can even remove the ddns web & javascript pages in the gargoyle/www & gargoyle/www/js folder. Also the About page - full of glory barnacles.

I don't know if that totals to 360kb though.

If you got super aggressive, you could skip gpkg the package installer.

[ninja]

i am really grateful to you BashfulBladder for taking time to give me nice explanation.At this moment it went over my head.. but i will try to catch it.
I need some suggestion from you.My friend has a dir-601 and he installed gargoyle 1.4.7 5783343 built feb 29 2012 openwrt 30752 and he is getting in /dev/mtd block 4 =664 available memory and i tried to install same 1.4.7 gargoyle on same model dir-601 version A1 and i am getting 640 available memory.I and him checked it by df command. Don't know why there is difference.Does it means my flash is occupied by something else?I tried to re flash couple of times but same results.Any ideas ?Thx

[BashfulBladder]

Are you preserving settings? Restoring settings? You may be saving old crud along with important crud. Other than that, I don't know why that would happen.

I didn't know you where on the 1.4.x series. I was talking about the 1.5.10+ branch of Gargoyle. I wasn't around for the Kamikaze days, so I imagine everything has only gotten bigger. You will probably have better luck with an older release.

[ninja]

I am instaling fresh firmware.1.4.7 is based on backfire 10.0.1. is there any way to cleanup overlay partition ?like mtd erase command?

[BashfulBladder]

Honestly, I have no earthly idea. The memory subsystem is not something I get into. You might have better luck at the openwrt forums.

[ninja]

Is it possible to get a full dump(including uboot and art data and everything) of flash without serial console?The reason why i am asking is that i can ask my friend to get a full dump of his working flash and then i can flash that on mine.

[ninja]

I found the reason why there is a difference in the amount of free memory blocks on different dir-601 A1 versions.Even tho they are same A1 versions some have winbond 25X32 flash chip and some have macronix 25X32.Units with winbond have 664 free memory blocks but macronix units have 640 free memory blocks in the overlay. Just wondering why there is difference? Could anybody please explain it.Thanks in advance.